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The Haunt of Alma Negron

Sammy awoke
when a soft, slimy thing fell on his face. With a swift stroke he slapped it away not
knowing what the wet thing was. A draft
enveloped him. Alma forgot to shut the windows, he thought shivering on a rock-hard bed in a
damp room. Feeling for the bed sheet, he
discovered there was none. He sat up and opened his eyes. It was pitch-black except for
lights that shimmered through the not-too-distant trees. The unfamiliar room seemed immense,
without walls. He barely made out the gray furniture that loomed in the blackness
around him. Turning onto his side he
reached for Alma. The stone-cold bed was empty.
Sammy squeezed his eyes shut and thought of Alma Negron. Her face, square and plump,
smiled at him from the bar stool at Aqui Me Quedo.

The night club Aqui Me Quedo sat on the
highway which stretched to Red Hook dock on the eastern
end of the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. Everyone knew each other there. At weekends
and at Sunday cock fights, customers raised hell from early until late. Their boisterous companions
were mostly Latin women who queened the bar stools, drank and flirted
with men before dragging them off to tiny rooms upstairs. Alma Negron did not
appear often, and when
she picked up a man, she took him outside Aqui Me Quedo.

Sammy Smalls, a dark, stocky,
dreadlocked mechanic and Rock Steady, his taller, muscular
work mate, were addicted to the smell, the flashing lights, and the twirling rush of bodies
at Acqui Me Quedo. Sammy’s felt warm
all over the first time he saw Alma. He was
seated at the back of the bar stirring his rum and coke when Rock Steady,
elbowed him.

“Sammy, look! A wonder of de universe.”

“Sweet thing, eh. Is me lucky night, Steady.”

Alma sat facing them. The rum punch in
her glass shook mildly as she swayed on a stool to a salsa
tune on the jukebox. Her tight fitted
jeans displayed plump, solid thighs and a small waist.
Sammy’s eyes ran down her curving hips and up again. Huge breasts protruded from a green
halter top. He wanted to rest his head between her cleavage.

“Steady, I feel I going win de lottery.”

“You think you could catch her?”

“Steady, she not a fish.”

“You know what I mean, Sammy. Rope her in
with small talk.

“Well, I not roping anybody. She not a cow. That’s not me style.”

“You got style, Sammy?”

“No.
I going be meself.”

“Sammy, you want her?”

“Of course, I want her.” His light brown
shirt was damp under the armpits. He pulled out a
handkerchief and wiped his sweaty face.

“Well, come up with something good.”

“Stop needling me,” Steady.

Sammy wiped his face again and stuffed
his handkerchief in his back pocket. “O.K. I going.” He walked unsteadily to the front of the
bar, looking back once at Steady. He straightened
his slumping shoulders, then smiled.
Alma Negron sat before him.

“Let’s dance. It’s carnival time, you know. No, no, no don’t stop de carnival.
No, no, no, don’t stop de
Bacchanal.”Alma broke out in song as she grabbed him and spun him onto the dance floor
cluttered with gyrating bodies.

Dancing with Alma was dancing with air. She held him, twirled him around, leaving him
dizzy, his mind in a whirl-wind. As they danced, her grey eyes glowed like a cat’s in
the dark.

“El
Gato.” The name popped into his
head as her long nails clutched and clawed him.

“You like me?” she purred into his ear. Long
nails walked down his back.

Sammy trembled. Alma held up his limp body during the next
number, a slow cha-cha-cha. He
woke from his trance alone on the floor.
A couple clung to each other in the spotlight. A slow, oldie competed with drunken chatter
in the room. It was just past midnight at Aqui Me
Quedo.

Alma always left him like that every
time they danced, he unaware of his surroundings, transported
to another world. Steady said she usually
escaped before twelve. Sammy suspected
that she was married to a man who worked a late shift, maybe a security guard,
who wasn’t
stocky, and didn’t have rough, chiselled cheek bones like he had. He imagined
the husband to
be possessive of his tall, caramel-colored Venus. Sammy named Alma’s husband
“The Bull Dog.” He hated this man who
abducted Alma from Aqui Me Quedo around midnight.
He wanted Alma for himself.

Sammy proposed to her each time they met.
He brooded when Alma didn’t show up.
She popped in
mostly on moonlit nights. He waited for her outside the bar under a mango tree. Moonlight streamed through its branches. He watched her extend firm legs out the dark, blue taxi’s
door . Then it would speed off, its occupants protected by gray tinted windows. He was
convinced that Bull Dog dropped her off at Aqui Me Quedo on his way to
work.

“So you come.” Sammy hugged her.

“Yes,
I here. You think I wasn’t coming? I
know you don’t trust me.”

“Yes, I trust you.” He held her soft, light hands and led her
inside the bar. “Is your friend I don’t
trust. By the way, what he do?”

“Business.” She smiled. Her cheeks
swelled.

“What kind of business?”

“His hand in everything.”

“Wish I could mash them.”

“You too jealous!”

Sammy ordered her a banana daiquiri
and she settled down on the bar stool.
He sprinted
across the room to the jukebox, watched his coins danced down its slot. A calypso blared from
the machine. “Bend down, touch your toes, draw back and let your bumsy roll.”

Everyone dashed to the dance floor. Alma’s
shoulders swung from side to side as she waited for
Sammy to plough through the crowd to meet her. She took control. The flashing
lights, reflecting on her grey eyes, dazzled him. She spun him round. He clung to her, his
head stuck between large, breasts.

“You going marry me, Alma!”

“Who tell you that?”

“Me heart tell me.” He attempted to hold her still but she kept
on dancing.

“Tonight’s the night,” Alma whispered.
“Come!”She pulled him outside and shoved him into the
waiting tinted-windowed taxi.

Alma kissed him, her tongue reaching down to his soul.
She chatted incessantly during the 20
minutes ride over Raphune Hill and across the town. They left the taxi near the Jewish burial
ground. An old plantation house loomed ahead of them. The colonial structure, partly hidden by
trees, stood behind the Jewish burial ground.
The silhouette of a large veranda, which
occupied the entire front of the house, seemed to dance between the trees.
Alma led the
way. Pulling a key from her purse, she
opened a large door and flowed mirage-like into the front
room. The ceiling was a high dome. Dark, velvet drapes covered the open windows that sucked
the wind in and somewhere let in a little light from a nearby street lamp. Sammy shivered. White candles rested on long rectangular
tables placed around the scantily fitted room. Sammy, befuddled by rum and the smell of
Alma’s scented breast, stood, rooted.
She glided
silently into another room. Tired of
standing, Sammy climbed onto a nearby table, removed the
candles, stretched out and waited. He
dozed.

Sometime later, he felt a thin bed sheet
settle upon him. Alma slid under it and
cuddled him. Her
body was cold. But with sleep serenading
him, Alma next to him and rum within him, he did
not give a damn. Death could take him
for all he cared.

A thunderclap followed by a downpour
woke him again. Wet leaves swirled onto him. Gongolos
dropped and crawled over his chest. He
hollered at the sight of the large,
black worms. Creeping daylight revealed
his bed, a moss-covered grave. He
closed his eyes,
shook his head and wiped his face with the back of his hands. Opening one eye at a time, a
cemetery emerged around him. Sammy fell down on his knees besides a headstone, shrieking.
The screams, rushing from his mouth, reverberated in the trees. Terrified birds fled.

Grave diggers
found his rigid body later that morning, mouth wide open.

-----

Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an
educator who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught
in the Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia, England and in Switzerland
since 1991. She earned a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from the
University of the Virgin Islands and an M.A. in Modern American Literature from
Kent State University, U.S.A. She also has a Cambridge Certificate in Teaching
English as a Foreign Language. She considers herself a citizen of the world,
having lived and taught in the US, Virgin Islands, the USA, Liberia, England
and in Switzerland since 1991. She is married to Dr. Emmanuel F Mark of
Hermitage, Grenada and is the mother of three adult children.

She was awarded the MargueriteCobb McKay Prize by the Editorial Board of The Caribbean
Writer in June, 2009 for publication (short story “Bitterleaf,”) in Volume
22, 2008. Was one of a hundred guest poets invited to read at the XX
International Poetry Festival of Medellin, Columbia. She writes poetry and
short stories and has been published in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, The
Bahamas, USA, England, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Colombia, India, UK
and Liberia.

She has published five collections of poems, If Only the Dust Would Settle,
Authorhouse UK 2009, English-German, Beyond
Dreams: The Ritual Dancer (Sabanoh Press, Liberia 1989), Two Faces, Two Phases (Speed-o-graphics,
Liberia 1984), Palaver (Downtown Poets Co-op, New York, 1978), and
Shu-Shu Moko Jumbi: The Silent Dancing
Spirit, (Department of Pan-African Studies, Kent State University, 1974)